Another former employee of the White House wrote a book. Not exactly news. Nor is the revelation that the Trump White House requires all employees to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that is not considered enforceable by the legal community - that was reported by the Washington Post in the spring of 2017. So why is the fact that Donald Trump's team had Omarose Manigault-Newman sign a nondisclosure agreement all over the news? First of all, after months of White House officials neither confirming nor denying that employees are required to sign NDAs, Pres. Trump confirmed the existence of the NDAs by tweeting "
Wacky Omarosa already has a fully signed Non-Disclosure Agreement!" This is a huge deal. According to legal experts interviewed by the
Washington Post, once Ms. Manigault-Newman began working for the federal government her NDA became unconstitutional as it violated the Constitution's protection of freedom of speech. Past Supreme Court cases have stated that the government cannot censor speech in advance (with the exception being classified information). The last part of the story is that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House Press Secretary, in a press conference with reporters, insisted that the private sector non-disclosure agreements were standard federal policy, conflating the NDAs with
Classified Nondisclosure Agreements [form 312] that anyone with a classified security clearance has to sign. Classified Nondisclosure Agreements only apply to the classified information which the signee has viewed, whereas private sector nondisclosure agreements apply to all aspects of the signee's interactions with the subject of the NDA.
The question is, while NDAs are not considered enforceable once you are a federal employee, should they even be allowed on the campaign trail? Should someone who is working on a campaign for federal office be obliged to sign a non-disclosure agreement? Should what happens on the campaign trail be kept secret from voters?
I don't think that someone working on a campaign (even for federal office) should be forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. I think that freedom of press/speech is way more important that some secrets whichever public candidate is trying to keep from the public. Actually, I think that it is especially important with a situation like this that workers in the campaign party not have to sign an NDA, because the people have the right and responsibility to know what their candidates are doing behind pulled curtains.
ReplyDeleteAna, I was thinking the same things. It seems especially important these days to know what is going on behind the scenes in a campaign, especially for president.
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